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Due to high levels of harassment, intimidation and conflict deaths in Myanmar (also called Burma) that is openly carried out by hostile Buddhists and (purportedly) by Burmese government troops, some 400,000 Rohingya muslims have fled in recent days to neighbouring Bangladesh.

The refugees are arriving tired, afraid, hungry and disoriented as they flee their burning villages. Sixty per cent of those fleeing, are women and children.

It’s not that Burma hasn’t any Muslims. On the contrary, 4.3 per cent of the country are Muslim (about 2.6 million in total) while 88 per cent (46 million) are Buddhist and 6 per cent are Christian.

What’s different for the Muslims in Burma is that due to arcane Burmese law, they aren’t allowed to own real estate (land or buildings) because they aren’t recognized as citizens due to the fact they can’t prove their ancestors lived there prior to 1823. The Rohingya are… human beings without a country.

In recent years over 100,000 have fled to nearby countries to work or to ask for refugee status. Most of them didn’t qualify for Burmese citizenship in the first place — and therefore arrived in a totally new country with no birth certificate, passport, other reliable identification, or even a family address. Intolerable, doesn’t begin to describe it.

Which is why hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have landed across the border in Bangladesh since August 25th. Up to 2.3 million more may arrive in the coming months if all Burmese muslims flee the country. If the present situation is any indication, it looks like all of them will leave Burma.

Why Not Just Go Back?

Burmese Rohingyas have nothing to return to, only burned out villages and increasingly hostile citizens. And once having crossed over into Bangladesh, they can’t cross back into the country in which they were born because they have no legal identification to show to Burmese border guards other than a long-distance telephone calling card (if they’re lucky) and no family address that is recognized by the Burmese authorities.

Since the late 1970’s: Following Burma’s fleeing Rohingya. Image courtesy of Al Jazeera

Bangladesh: The Promised Land for the Rohingya

For decades, the Rohingya have been leaving Burma for Bangladesh and other southeast Asian nations, seeking employment and a chance at a new life.

In those places, if they can find employment they can eventually apply for citizenship and become an actual citizen, with an actual street address, and be a person with an actual job and a real life. If you’re a factory owner that hires a Rohingya, you know they are highly motivated to succeed and that they will be the least problematic of all your workers.

However, even a successful economy like Bangladesh can’t accept millions of refugees in a matter of weeks. The country is doing relatively well for a developing nation and continues to improve its infrastructure and the lives of its citizens every year.

Bangladesh is ranked surprisingly highly by development agencies, and is often referred to ‘one of the next-11’ countries after the G20 countries.

An interesting note about Bangladesh is that they are the largest contributor in the world to UN peacekeeping missions — providing tough, fully trained troops for many UN operations. (The UN pays the wages of the Bangladesh soldiers under its command and supplies many of the tanks and APC’s that Bangla soldiers use while on UN missions, which is standard practice for the United Nations)

What Will it Take to Help the Rohingya?

Plenty of international aid money

Acceptance by Bangladesh citizens

In the southern region of Bangladesh, 409,000 Rohingya are being held in camps stretching along the border with Burma. While 60 per cent of the refugees are women and children, Bangladeshis worry about young Rohingya males who may have been exposed to extremist thought and could conceivably at least, act against Bangladesh citizens in the future. So far, nothing like that has been reported.

However, keeping hundreds of thousands of refugees in miserable and makeshift camps in hot and humid weather isn’t going to help anyone’s mood.

Even if the Rohingyas arrived there never having imagined a terrorist thought in their life, a year of living under those conditions won’t help to keep violent acts out of the minds of young men, who, like young men everywhere, are prone to acting on a perceived problem without properly thinking it through.

If Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina can convince UN donors to generously fund the effort, her country has a very good chance of accommodating the sudden flood of refugees; Assisting them to find jobs, homes, and helping to build the strong sort of communities that are an asset to any country — but if it doesn’t happen in this manner, that region of Bangladesh is on the same path as the extremely hurtful (to all sides) Israeli/Palestinian conflict was at its very beginning. Nobody wants that.

Or do they? We’ll see what the response is when the UN General Assembly meets this week in New York.

What Jobs Can the Rohingya Do?

If Bangladesh elects to help the Rohingya fleeing persecution in Burma, the best way forward is to employ them as farm labourers in the southern part of the country. Many of these people have lived in rustic conditions and it will take some time before they will be getting jobs as CEO’s, airline pilots, or automobile designers. But that’s not to say they can’t make a valuable contribution to the Bangladesh economy — they can!

Starting the Rohningyas working in the fields will allow them to acclimatize to the new country and cement their place as valuable workers in Bangla society.

The most important thing for the Bangladeshi authorities to remember after taking care of food, shelter and medicine for the new refugees is to provide a sense of community.

Just dumping these people on a hunk of land and feeding them every day isn’t going to solve anything other than saving their lives, but the eventual result will be a social crisis on the scale of what we’re witnessing in the Philippines today.

What Kind of Housing for Working Rohingya Families?

Refugees that want to work should have access to temporary living quarters. You simply can’t get any sleep in a refugee camp (you know this if you’ve ever visited one!) and therefore, you won’t keep your job very long. Therefore, it’s important to relocate Rohingya workers to suitable accommodations for workers and their families until they can save up enough to purchase their own dwelling.

There are thousands of used portable offices and portable crew quarters in the world available at any time. Not only that, but the UN could purchase thousands of new ATCO-type portable trailers to house Rohingya workers and ship them to southern Bangladesh.

In that way, those Rohingyas that are able and willing to work, will have appropriate accommodation. The benefit of these portable buildings is that they are prewired for electricity, and stoves and heat are provided by natural gas tanks located on the exterior of the unit.

One point to remember about this kind of living quarters is that they can be lifted via crane and placed on top of solid stilts — this is important in Bangladesh as many areas of the country are prone to flooding. Many typical Bangla homes are placed on stilts to prevent flooding during the monsoon season.

However, it’s going to take a few billion dollars just to meet the needs of these desperate people until the end of the year. After that, rather than allowing the miserable conditions of the refugee camps to become the fuel for conflict, the Rohingya must be proactively urged to find local work on the many farms in the region. It’s really the only option in this case.

Getting refugees employed is almost as important as sheltering and feeding them as they stream across the Bangladesh border.

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(Frontier Myanmar)

A sea-change is upon the United Kingdom whether some have come to that full realization or not

The relationship between the UK and the rest of the world is beginning to change as the UK exits the European Union. Not only that, but the relationship between the UK and the other Commonwealth countries is changing. And while all of that is occurring, it is also a time of change in the postwar international order.

These changes are coming and we have no ability to stop them. What we do have though, is the ability to choose whether these changes are ultimately negative or positive for Britain.

The days of ‘Win-Lose’ politics are over

When every second country (seemingly) has WMD weapons, suddenly Win-Lose doesn’t work anymore. Do we really want to solve every issue between nations with nuclear weapons? Because eventually, that’s what it will come to.

It’s great if you ‘Win’. But then you ‘Lose’ because the fallout from large nuclear explosions travel around the Earth a few times per season and nuclear particles continue to exist in the environment for decades (some isotopes linger for 20,000 years) and as everyone needs to breathe the air, eventually you will inhale and, well, (do I really have to tell you this?) your lungs will filter the radioactive isotopes out of the air.

The ‘Winners’ of a WMD conflict will also become ‘Losers’ of that conflict within months. It’s nonsensical to consider nuclear war in the 21st-century.

All of which means, that in the final analysis, international hot points must henceforth be solved by the cool hand of diplomacy.

The days of fighting for Market Share are over

More than any other country, fighting for market share no longer makes economic sense for the UK, because every other country/corporation is likewise fighting for market share.

Larger countries with serious export expertise and fully developed and long-term foreign client relationships have a distinct advantage over a born-again United Kingdom re-entering the exporting world. Fighting for market share against far superior marketing superpowers like Germany and China is like paddling upriver in a hurricane, and good luck with that.

Rather than fighting for Britain’s slice of the pie, the UK should be the one country in the world that works to make the pie bigger for everyone! wherever free markets exist.

In that way, whatever global growth occurs will benefit all exporters equally — including Britain’s born-again export economy, because the UK will have as good a chance as any to capture some of that growing pie — as opposed to fighting companies well entrenched in foreign markets and trying to steal tiny percentages of their total market share. See the difference?

Rommel was right. And to adapt his truth to Britain’s new place in the world, fighting for market share in countries that are already well-served by European and Chinese exporters will gain British exporters very little and could create trade frictions between Britain and the European Union which is still the UK’s largest trading partner in the 21st-century. We don’t want that.

‘Win-Win and Growing the Market vs. ‘Win-Lose’ and fighting for Market Share

Win-Win political thinking and growing the global market is the best prescription for Britain’s economic future.

Countries with rapidly growing economies like the BRICS countries and many Commonwealth nations are the best places for Britain to concentrate its export efforts. By helping those countries to succeed more than they would have without the UK’s assistance, Britain can grow its export base by selling to people in rapidly growing developing nations enjoying their newfound discretionary income.

It’s all about rising Disposable Income in Developing Nations

The example of India is most poignant, because in that country the average discretionary income of citizens is doubling every five years; All Britain’s leaders must do now, is to work respectfully with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers to the end that British exports to India are welcome and that Indian exports to the UK are just as welcome. (It helps if both countries aren’t manufacturing and selling the same items, of course) If India sells toasters in both countries then Britain should sell kettles in both countries, if you take my meaning. The less overlap, the better.

A few years from now, when a larger percentage of India’s 1.5 billion population can afford to buy a new car, perhaps Indian companies will offer tuk-tuks, small cars and farm trucks for sale in India and the UK, while the UK sells family sedans and Landrovers in India and the UK.

Any other method of working to each country’s strengths — without stepping on each other’s toes — would also be profitable for companies of both countries. What matters is that whatever method is chosen works for companies in both countries.

With the right approach to rapidly growing countries and some standardized and respectful trade rules, the UK could help to grow the global pie, dramatically increase its own exports, keep good relations with exporting superpowers in Europe, China, and America, and be seen as a ‘White Knight’ to developing nations by playing a pivotal and ongoing role in helping them to build their economies.

That future is so much better than bickering over fractions of market share with other (and economically superior) exporting nations — the very countries that Britain depends upon in many ways.

Here’s to ‘Win-Win’ paradigms and growing the global economic pie; A plan that will work for the United Kingdom more than almost any other country — while preventing harm to Britain’s present and important trade relationships.

What is Merit Order ranking?

Merit Order is a ranking system used by electric utilities to choose the most cost-effective electricity to add to the grid at any given moment.

Thanks to the magic of computerization, microprocessors make thousands of decisions per day based on parameters set by the utility company to help the utility to make the highest profits — based on ‘the spread’ — the difference between what they pay energy producers (the wholesale price) and the price they charge their customers (the retail price).

Most utility companies have Merit Order ranking control rooms similar to this one where decisions are made about which power producer will contribute to the grid. Microprocessors make the instant decisions while humans are present to oversee operations and plan ahead.

The cheapest electricity on a per kilowatt per hours basis(kW/h) is always solar and wind power which has a merit order ranking of 0 (Merit Order 0) which makes wind and solar the automatic default for utility companies that take every bit of it they can get — and only then do they add power to the grid from the number 1 ranked energy source (Merit Order 1) which in the United States, is coal.

Coal would still be the default energy producer as it was for decades, but because coal has a fuel cost attached to it while solar and wind power don’t, coal ranks lower on the merit order ranking scale. Other electricity generators hold different positions on the merit order ranking scale, with natural gas ‘peaking power plants’ the absolute last choice for utility companies because the per kW/h cost of electricity generated by natural gas gas peaking power plants is so high compared to other energy producers.

The German Merit Order ranking system offers an easy explanation

In the German example, electricity rates are determined hourly and customers are charged the corresponding hourly rate.

For our purposes to explain merit order ranking, this works well. In Germany electricity rates drop by up to 40% during the hours in which solar or wind are active, and this is what Merit Order ranking is all about; Using the cheapest available electricity FIRST — and then filling the gaps with more expensive electrical power generators after all the solar and wind capacity is brought online.

Solar and wind electricity in Germany are rated at Merit Order 0 making them the default for utility companies as they meet their daily demand.

Once all of the available solar and wind capacity is online, only then are, (1) nuclear, (2) coal, and (3) natural gas, ramped up to meet the daily German demand curve.

NOTE: In the U.S. the normal Merit Order rankings are; default (0) for solar and wind, (1) coal, (2) nuclear, (3) hydropower, and (4) natural gas, although this order can change in some parts of the United States, depending which types of energy are produced in a given region.

Still using the German example; The Fraunhofer Institute found – as far back as 2007 – that as a result of the Merit Order ranking system – solar power had reduced the price of electricity on the EPEX exchange by 10 percent on the average, with reductions peaking at up to 40 percent in the early afternoon when the most solar power is generated.

Here’s how the Merit Order works

All available sources of electrical generation are ranked by their marginal costs, from cheapest to most expensive, with the cheapest having the most merit.

The marginal cost is the cost of producing one additional unit of electricity. Electricity sources with a higher fuel cost have a higher marginal cost. If one unit of fuel costs $X, 2 units will cost $X times 2. This ranking is called the order of merit of each source, or the Merit Order.

Using Merit Order to decide means the source with the lowest marginal cost must be used first when there is a need to add more power to the grid – like during sunny afternoon peak hours.

Using the lowest marginal costs first was designed so that cheaper fuels were used first to save consumers money. In the German market, this was nuclear, then coal, then natural gas.

But 2 hours of sunshine cost no more than 1 of sunshine: therefore it has a lower marginal cost than coal – or any source with any fuel cost whatsoever.

So, under the Merit Order ranking of relative marginal costs, devised before there was this much fuel-free energy available on the grid, solar always has the lowest marginal cost during these peaks because two units of solar is no more expensive than one. — Susan Kraemer

It’s as simple as this; With no fuel costs, solar and wind cost less.

Although solar and wind are expensive to construct initially (but not as expensive as large nuclear power plants, large coal power plants, or large hydro-electric dams) there is no fuel price to pay, no weather-related price spikes, fuel transportation costs, fuel supply disruptions, or lack of rainfall to factor into the final electricity price.

As solar panel and wind turbine prices continue to drop thereby encouraging more solar and wind installations, we’ll hear more about Merit Order ranking.

Only solar, wind, hydro-electric and nuclear power have a predictable kW/h price every day of the year. Coal, home heating fuel and natural gas, do not. And that’s everything to energy producers and their customers, the utility companies.

Although energy companies and utilities were slower than consumers to embrace renewable energy, some are now seeing benefit for their business model and henceforth, things will change.

Buckle up, because big changes are coming to the existing utility business model, changes that will benefit energy producers, energy consumers and the environment.

Thanks to the dedication of thousands of people, the problems that plagued Northern Ireland for decades have all but disappeared. While we mourn those lost during ‘The Troubles’ we must move forward and provide the best possible future for the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The best way to continue to move forward is for a ‘soft’ border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland so that the free movement of people and unimpeded trade may continue along the 310 mile border.

Many people on both sides of the border meet for tea, travel across the border to shop, or are employed on the other side of the border and it would be unfair to require these people to face a regular border crossing twice daily. And a hard border would definitely hinder trade, which trade is a vital part of the local economy along both sides of the divide.

A dedicated ‘Commonwealth and Ireland’ line at UK ports of entry

The smartest thing the Home Office UK Visas and Immigration department could do is to create a separate queue line at all UK ports of entry and mark it “Commonwealth and Ireland” so that people from Commonwealth countries or from the Republic of Ireland have a dedicated and streamlined entry into Britain.

In this way, goods and people can move much more efficiently between those jurisdictions.

If it sounds like I want to favour people from Commonwealth nations, you’re right. If it sounds like I want to favour people from Northern Ireland who may decide to fly to Britain, you’d be right. And if it sounds like I want Republic of Ireland citizens to easily travel to any part of the UK, you’d be right in that assumption.

Special Treatment at UK ports of entry: A ‘Nexus Card’ for frequent travelers between Ireland and any UK port of entry

Here in North America, citizens who cross the U.S. / Canada border can apply for a Nexus Card or an Enhanced Driver’s Licence — either of which dramatically speed border crossing times for holders of those cards — and not incidentally, also lowers wait times for the people in the non-Nexus lineups because fewer people (or vehicles) are traveling in that particular queue — it’s a bonus for frequent travelers in North America.

Such a streamlined customs experience should be extended to all Irish citizens as a courtesy — and for the Republic of Ireland in exchange for their help in patrolling and securing the soft border with Northern Ireland.

The UK Government (UK.gov) Paper on Northern Ireland and Ireland

Stormont is the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly and is located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Image courtesy of visitbelfast.com

“The UK government pledges to protect the Belfast Agreement and Common Travel Area in new position paper published August 16, 2017.

The Government has today published a comprehensive paper which outlines the UK’s position on addressing the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland and the land border with Ireland.

The position paper — which has been published ahead of the August negotiating round — states that the Government will protect the Common Travel Area (CTA) and associated rights for UK and Irish citizens, and put upholding the Belfast (‘Good Friday’) Agreement at the heart of its Exit negotiations.

The paper also puts forward proposals on avoiding a hard border on the movement of goods — making clear the UK’s position that there should be no physical infrastructure at the border — and plans to preserve the wide range of institutional cooperation between Northern Ireland, Ireland and Great Britain including for the energy market.” — From the UK.gov website

Trade Between the UK and the Republic of Ireland

Billions of pounds sterling in trade crosses between the UK and the Republic of Ireland and a significant amount of it is spent in the small and medium-sized business (SME) trade. Keeping the border open, yet enhancing security will be a challenge for both the UK and the Republic of Ireland, but with good will and some visionary thinking it shouldn’t be too difficult to get an agreement that benefits the largest number of people.

A Soft Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is in everyone’s interest

For as long as the Republic of Ireland remains a member of the European Union it’s in everyone’s best interests to keep the soft border arrangement and to work together to enhance security on both sides of that soft border by any reasonable means.

If that means having facial recognition technology and vehicle license plate readers at all government buildings and properties, ferry terminals and international airports in Northern Ireland and Britain, it’s a small price to pay to preserve and enhance security for the EU, for the Republic of Ireland, and the UK including Northern Ireland.

The soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland must work for citizens of each country, for small (and large) business, and it must ensure a high level of security for both the EU and the UK. This is one Brexit negotiation that must succeed for the benefit of all.

Let us never forget that it was North Korea, acting with the approval of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that attacked a peaceful South Korea on June 25th, 1950 — an invasion that was opposed by all UN member nations except China, which later provided significant support to the North Korean side.

In all, more than 2.5 million civilians and over 1 million military personnel were killed (some 32,975 military personnel are still listed as ‘missing’) for a likely total of 3.5 million deaths attributable to the Korean War.

However, a since reclassified report said that 4.4 million deaths occurred as a result of the Korean War (and that number includes those who died from lack of food, water, medicine, or proper sanitation as a direct result of the war) and the responsibility for those deaths lay squarely on the people who initially approved the unprovoked invasion of South Korea: Kim Il-sung of North Korea, Joseph Stalin of the USSR, and while providing only minimal support at the beginning of the war it was China’s Mao Zedong who provided a dramatic increase in men and matériel to fight the UN force defending South Korea.

Armistice Signed in 1953

Since July 27, 1953 an armistice has remained in place between North Korea, China and Russia on one side of the conflict, and the countries of the United Nations on the other.

NOTE: An armistice is regarded as a state of ‘ceasefire’ and is also called a ‘cessation of hostilities’ but it isn’t an actual long-term peace agreement.

Not at War, But Not at Peace

From June 1954 when the official negotiating teams representing both sides wrapped up their work because they were unable to forge a long-term peace agreement due to the intransigence of North Korea’s political leaders (although North Korea’s military agreed on the need for a durable peace agreement during negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland “the Geneva Conference (1954)” and in fact, covertly floated the idea of UN powers helping them to stage a coup in North Korea) the Korean War hasn’t officially ended, although it’s important to remember that there has been no actual combat between the two sides in all those years, but there have been many instances of irritation between the former combatants.

A Country on a Permanent War Footing

In North Korea, the war never ended. At least the war mindset never ended. It’s a country that still prepares for war and it’s a country that expects to be attacked on any given day of the year. The economy is a ‘war economy’ which means that aside from growing food to feed its citizens and building homes to shelter them, everything is geared towards preparing for war.

“Women must serve in the army for about seven years, and men for 10 years.” — Newsweek

‘No country in the world could successfully invade and occupy North Korea’ it has been said by many experts. Every adult in the country has served a minimum of seven years in the North Korean military, and some have served their whole lives. The standing army numbers 1.1 million with another 7.7 million army reservists that can be called-up instantly.

Every city, every village, every building, every street, every farm area has been designed to favour the defenders, including some bridges, buildings and roads prewired with explosives to destroy them and there are estimated to be as many as 20-million land mines installed in forested land and in (what appears to be) agricultural belts. When you add that to the fact that every adult has served in the army and knows where to access those controls and their associated explosives, it makes war in the north a virtual death trap for any invading army, no matter how large or powerful.

All of their serious military facilities are deep underground — so far down that only repeated direct hits with nuclear weapons will shake those underground buildings enough to kill everyone inside. And even then, some may still survive if they’re strapped in and not bouncing off the walls or ceilings hard enough to break their necks during the shaking. And if they’re alive, they can still push buttons. The kind of buttons we don’t like.

The North Korean air force is small and it has few 4th and 5th-generation aircraft, but it’s designed for, and their pilots are expert at, the close air support role, which is another important factor to consider for any country considering invasion of North Korea.

The North Korean Navy is tiny, but the ace up its sleeve is a large fleet of highly-modified Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, some of which have been modified to accept ballistic missiles (although every attempted launch to date has failed) and the Kilo’s are generally noted for their stealth and are notorious for their ability to covertly deliver troops or supplies to any coast in the world. The USSR built hundreds of these small, but excellent submarines and conducted secret operations on every continent. Yes, every continent.

The Soviet Navy never installed ICBM missile tubes in Kilo-class subs, but the North Korean navy did. So, it’s just a matter of time before North Korea figures out the technical bits related to launching ballistic missiles from underwater.

NOTE: The Soviet Navy preferred to create a whole new class of submarine (the Akula-class) from which to launch ICBM’s and was an excellent decision from every conceivable safety standpoint.

The book on North Korea’s military is this: ARMY: The army is an extremely well-trained and capable army — one of the largest in the world — and it is well dug-in and the entire country has been set up to foil invasion. AIR FORCE: Small, but extremely well-trained for the close air support mission, and very capable in that role. NAVY: Small, almost non-existent surface fleet, but well trained for coastal reconnaissance — but their submarine fleet is large, with growing size and capability, and their capabilities are regularly underestimated by other countries.

Now North Korea has Nuclear Bombs and ICBM’s

Now that North Korea has admitted to having a small number of nuclear bombs and is testing advanced missiles, its leader has decided to use his nation’s war economy and military to get what he wants for his country.

That’s the basic psychology at work there, and we’ve seen this before. In fact, every war begins the same way.

Except, because negotiations between the UN nations and North Korea have been practically non-existent, nobody really knows what Kim Jong-un wants!

Obviously he wants something or he wouldn’t be firing nuclear-capable missiles across Japanese airspace or threatening the United States with nuclear missile attack.

And we don’t even know what the man wants…

At the Very Least, We Should Find Out What Kim Jong-un Wants

There’s no doubt that he will continue to improve the technology and capability of his submarine fleet. There’s no doubt his ICBM programme will continue to improve and there’s no chance of staging a coup in that country as the citizens and the military command are simply too loyal to the ‘Dear Leader’ as he’s known to his people.

So, as we’re stuck with him until he eventually passes away and North Korean politics becomes a lot more mainstream, we might as well engage in some high level diplomacy and find out what he wants. Perhaps he has some legitimate grievances and not-as-legitimate grievances, and some reasonable requests of the international community.

It costs nothing to talk. But not talking might result in nuclear war, especially if the present lack of communication continues past the time that Kim Jong-un’s ICBM’s become nuclear-capable and can travel thousands of miles.

Who Should Talk to North Korea?

In the war that was the Korean War, it was the UN member nations (with the exception of the USSR and China) that fought back against the North Korean invasion of South Korea — therefore, it was a war between the UN (minus two members) and North Korea — and therefore, any diplomatic initiatives which at this point are strongly advised, must be presented to North Korea by the United Nations.

At present, there’s nothing. Not even a weekly phone call.

Which is very distressing if you’re a person who happens to know what the stakes are.

Time is On Our Side

In the long run, if the rhetoric is kept to a low level and if high level diplomatic engagement becomes a number one priority for the United Nations negotiating teams and communications staff, and if reasonable requests from Jong-un are approved, all of us, including those in North Korea, will get to live. Yes, nuclear war is like that.

Constant diplomacy works every time but only because diplomacy takes place between human beings on both sides of any issue or conflict — and not between opposing computers. The application of professional diplomacy to any problem can solve anything, given enough effort and time.

It’s just that it takes a high level of commitment to stick to it, and each and every action (not words, but actions) taken by the Jong-un regime will need to be carefully weighed and North Korea ‘punished’ or ‘rewarded’ as appropriate, using ‘soft power’ only, and we need to realize it’s going to take some amount of time.

The best way that human beings learn anything is via ‘carrot and stick’. Reward a person (even foreign dictators) every time they do something right (within reason) and punish them every time they do something wrong (within reason) and you are training that person to be your ally. Yes, with the right diplomacy, time is on our side.